


Maybe

by selftaughthuman



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Bending (Avatar TV), Angst, F/F, Mental Health Issues, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:59:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27597206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selftaughthuman/pseuds/selftaughthuman
Summary: Korra returns to school after years away, stumbling upon a girl she's not sure she's ready to see while searching for coffee.
Relationships: Korra/Asami Sato
Kudos: 250





	Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> An AU which takes place in Boston and uses lines from the show here and there. Unbeta-ed.

The sky is a patchworked quilt of blue and white and gray, the sun poking pinprick rays through the seams in fast-moving clouds. The sun is well past risen and hangs low amongst the breaking overcast. She finds the view overhead beautiful and glances up with a smile as she walks briskly across the riveted metal bridge. It is early Autumn, and the air is fragranced by dead leaves and dry air. The slap of her booted steps is lost to the crunching as she trudges over the scattered leaf-litter. Her toe box clacks against a single acorn. The nut rolling along the sidewalk goes unnoticed over the clamor pouring from her earbuds. Unseen, it tumbles off the curb and into the road, helplessly splitting beneath the tire of a passing car. 

Buried in her bag is a cell phone buzzing away unfelt until it interrupts the music, the ringing loud enough to crackle. She taps to answer, hurriedly rummaging to find the device and rectify the thunder that is her mother’s usually soft voice.

“Hi, sweetie.” Finally locating her phone, she reduces the volume, the squint of her eyes releasing as the sound becomes tolerable.

“Hi, mom.” She murmurs, wondering why her eardrums tolerate the loudness with music but not voice.

“It’s not too late there is it?” Glancing at the time on her home screen, she tosses the phone back into her satchel.

“No, it’s only like three in the afternoon.” The time difference is less profound to her now than when she first came to this city years ago.

“You seem so much farther away than that. So…how’s school going?”

“Good. Everything’s good.” She answers, as much to convince herself as her mother.

“And how’s the weather? Any snow yet?” Today’s is a temperature that allows choice, only requires a light jacket, a sweater, both if desired. In her hometown, she’s sure the ground is already well buried.

“No, it’s still too early here.”

“Oh, well, we’ve already had three feet.” Her mind is flooded with a childhood spent outside, snowball fights and thick jackets and biting cold and building forts and ice skating. The first snow of the season, a pristine and sparkling white comes to mind as does the joy of destroying it. So much romping around with the puppy she got when she was eleven…running through the trails they made in turn. 

“How’s my baby?” She asks after a pet who is closer to her child. 

Her mother, Senna, laughs. It is one of Korra’s favorite sounds, gentle and with a rasp that recalls the squish of wet sand pinched together. “She’s still sleeping in your room every night. You know she might miss you more than we do, which is saying something! She’s actually off fishing with your father right now. Waiting for some fish scraps I’m sure.”

It is troubling news because her father is terrible at moderating his treats. “Tell Dad not to spoil Naga! She gained like ten pounds the last time I…” Pausing, she chooses her words. “Wasn’t around.” It is a lie. She was around but unable to care for the dog, unable to care even for herself. She remembers laying in her bed and having the air crushed from her chest by a newly round Naga, the tiny belly that started to show between her hindlegs. It wasn’t until she started to walk any distance again herself that she could address the situation, ended up teaching the dog to walk on her treadmill. Rehabilitation became a shared activity, alternating rounds on the exercise equipment.

“I’ll remind him, but you know how your father is.” Senna supplies without any true commitment in her words.

“That’s why I’m worried.” A mental note is made to send her father, who still prefers e-mail to text for unknown reasons, a note of warning.

“How are your legs feeling?” Permanent nerve damage that her mother holds unsubstantiated hope might eventually resolve is too frequently a topic of conversation. The injury causes occasional cramps and shooting pain, which are unfortunately exacerbated when she straps on a pair of skates. The chronic neuralgia is annoying but manageable and really does not need to be discussed.

“They’re fine mom. Don’t worry about my legs.” Korra answers for the hundredth time, trying to temper her voice.

Perhaps she feels overly sensitive about it because it is the only physical rawness that stayed. Those pains have become a new reality, one she’s close to accepting as a thing that simply is, but she’s not quite there with it.

“Are you done with classes for the day?” The shift in conversational gears is welcome.

“Yeah. I’m just gonna walk around. Find a coffee shop or something, study.” She’s tired of being in her dorm room, wants to keep dipping her toes into socialization, be around people even if she isn’t interacting. 

“You know I hate to ask, but how are the dreams?” That is also something Korra doesn’t care to talk about, the nightmares about the car accident that massacred her legs.

“Not too bad,” She lies unconvincingly, never had any real skill with it. 

The anxiety she’s been clinically diagnosed with after her accident has at least granted the exception of a single dorm room. She’s grateful for the spared embarrassment of explaining her night terrors to a stranger but it does make dorm life lonelier. Her self-imposed isolation certainly does not help that either…a coffee shop would be a good steppingstone.

“I’m doing that breathing stuff Tenzin taught me.” She tosses into the quiet on the other end of the line. It does honestly help, the mindful breathing a reminder that her body functions as a body is designed to. Tenzin is from the same place she is, the son of their town doctor. She was set up to stay with the spiritual teacher and his large family when she came to this city the first time, during the summer before her first year of college. It was when she’d met her circle of friends…the ones she hasn’t spoken to yet, the ones who don’t even know she’s back. “Don’t worry about that either, okay?”

“Korra, I’m going to worry about you. I’m your mother.” Senna and she sigh at the same moment and with the same weight. “I was just calling to say we love you and we’re so proud you’re going back, honey! Oh, wait! I forgot to ask. Have you seen the boys yet?”

“No…not yet.” She really needs to reach out. It’s unlike her to be so mired with indecision. On ten separate occasions, she has typed out a text to either of the brothers, stared at the words, and then abandoned them unsent. Usually, she would charge headlong into whatever decision she locked into, but that is another thing changed by the trauma. Whether it is her self-confidence or her caution that is altered, that is a question she struggles to answer.

“But I thought you were going to reach out? It’s been a month already.” That she does not know what to say, that she feels responsible for letting things fall by the wayside, she says neither. She’s grown tired of her own excuses.

“I know and I will. I promise, okay? I’m just…” Despite the exhaustion, another excuse pours from her lips, the truth too painful. “Still settling in, I guess.” Korra dreads knowing whether she’s destroyed things that were precious to her, has trouble overcoming the notion that it is better not to know at all.

“What about Asami?” The name provokes an immediate tightening in her chest, a pang that hitches her breath. Her thoughts become syrupy with guilt and unresolved, hard to move through. “Isn’t her school near yours?”

“It's pretty close.” She mumbles, trailing off toward the end. There’s no doubt about their proximity. Korra is keenly aware that the other woman’s college is somewhere relatively close by and that Asami lives a life about which she knows only the scantest of details. She also knows that it was inarguably her doing, their distance. 

“Where does she go again? She was always such a smart girl.” A smart girl is an understatement. Her friend is the smartest person she knows; Asami’s brilliance for anything mechanical is prodigious.

“MIT.” She isn’t sure whether that means much to her parents. It didn’t mean much to her, beyond the fact she knows it to be prestigious and difficult to get into, that it is a school for intelligent folks who plan to do impressive things with their intellectual talent. In that respect, Asami absolutely belongs there. 

“Well can you at least promise to meet up with her before Thanksgiving? I want to include her and the boys on the Christmas cookie tins this year.” That her mother is playing her, she is well-aware. It’s a subtle manipulation, but a good one. The request is indirect enough that Korra cannot call her out on forcing a reunion. 

Instead, she tries to skirt around the appeal by removing herself from the middle of it. “You can send her and the guys whatever you want. It’s not like you need my permission.”

“I can’t send them anything if you don’t get me their addresses, honey.” Without a doubt, her mother had that snapback at the ready.

Recognizing defeat, she relents. “Alright, I get it and it’s not like I’m not gonna wait that long anyway.”

“Good! That’s good. I think it might help. You and Asami were so close for a while. She’s a wonderful girl…” There is a heavy pause, and she feels, not for the first time, the words her mother wants to say lurking at the boundaries of their conversation. A very large part of her is glad that Senna never steps over those imagined borders because she wouldn’t know what to say, doesn’t even know what to say to herself about it, but another small part wants to know if she’s really being seen. “I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to hear from you. I’m sure those boys would be too! The four of you were a little team.”

“Yeah, I guess.” They _were_ a team. The past tense hits her, a gong resounding inside her head.

“Alright, well I’ll let you get to your studying. Bye, sweetie.” She smiles at the endearment, the comfort of it.

“Bye, mom.”

As the line disconnects, she pulls her phone from the top zipper pocket, slinging her bag in front of her for better reach. Briefly, she searches for coffee shops, scrolling through a fruitful search. She’s been meaning to venture further away from campus anyway…she never did before except when she had a destination. Practice took up quite a bit of her time and with that gone, she might as well roam. The choice is based upon an indescribable pull. Maybe the name exists in some scrap of subconscious memory, an overheard conversation perhaps or maybe it is just a completely arbitrary enjoyment of the bakery’s logo and simplistic name. Flour it is.

She isn’t much for watching her own progress and thoroughly trusts her sense of direction. Merely checking some street names, she commits the few turns and estimated time to memory. Her walk begins with picking her way across a rotary where drivers haphazardly switch lanes and honk aggressively at the slightest provocation. Adjusting the hat her mother knit and tucking a bit of hair behind her ear such that it stops tangling in her eyelashes, she regards the street sign to reassure herself she’s found her starting location. It becomes far more relaxing thereafter, strolling along streets with older multi-story houses, trees half-way bare, and a smattering of small parks. She returns to her music, eying the cross streets as she passes and coming finally upon her turn. The sidewalks are wide, sometimes brick and sometimes concrete, sporadically decorated with newly planted saplings in cordoned squares of patchy earth. Korra walks along them in silence, jamming hands into her jacket pockets and resisting the urge to hum or sing along with the tunes that play. It is an easy enough trip, twenty or so minutes of walking to arrive in some vaguely industrial-looking part of the city, hotels and storefronts and large buildings, scant bursts of sunlight reflecting off them. She passes through the doors of the bakery, eying the temptations of a large display and then tracing the line of stools set along the windows, scouting a potential location. They end with small tables on the far side and that is where her heart stops. 

Sitting against the window five seats down, a slouchy maroon sweater with sleeves long enough to graze her knuckles, new glasses perched on her nose is Asami Sato. So many details untouched by the years apart, signature lipstick, black hair slightly wavy, long and falling around her…she’s still the most beautiful girl Korra has ever seen. Hunched over a fancy looking tablet, stylus in hand and working busily, the woman has the corner of her bottom lip caught by a front tooth. She studies whatever is on the screen intently, releasing her lip to mouth words Korra can’t make out. Asami’s posture tends to suffer when emotions or concentration intensify…which always struck her as adorable. Those long legs are encased in black jeans and crossed at the ankle, knees grazing the underside of the table.

…and why?

Why is she still standing here? Why is she frozen awkwardly near the entrance with her heart thundering in her ears staring at a friend she quite possibly wronged and is petrified to speak to? There is not a piece of her that feels ready for this and Asami hasn’t noticed Korra. There is still time to walk slowly backward out of this place, still time to escape… _or not._ Green eyes that pop into Korra’s mind at the most random of moments are now staring at her, huge with shock. The stylus loses balance in a suddenly slack grip and tumbles down, clacking against the side of the screen as it falls to the table.

Asami blinks rapidly, parted lips closing and then curling suddenly into a beatific smile. Waving back warily, a self-conscious grin tickles the corner of her mouth in return. Korra’s body though is solidified by nervousness and she doesn’t move an inch as the other woman stands up, seconds later gathering her up in a tight hug. She melts into it helplessly.

“Korra!! I can’t believe it!” The excited and quiet words drift featherlight across her ear, as her arms wrap around the taller girl instinctively. It’s a hug that lasts, that tries to make up for many missed before, and Asami still smells exactly the same, same perfume, same shampoo…a creature of habit. It’s a funny thing to notice. 

“Um…hey.” Swallowing thickly, she barely manages a smile through the fear which holds her insides like a vice. She pulls her hat off and hastily smooths her hair, plucks the buds from her ears as she thinks to herself _so far so good_. Asami actually seems happy to see her, really happy. It’s more than she feels she has a right to.

Green eyes flow over her. “I’m loving the hair.”

She feels the heat in her cheeks, and she knows she’s blushing like a twelve-year-old at the mild compliment. It does nothing to calm her. “Thanks. You’re looking…snazzy as always.” _From twelve years old to eighty_ she chastises herself, but Asami only smirks at her.

“Snazzy, huh?” She has no defense. “I’ll take it.” There is a moment where they are both at a loss before Asami shakes her head lightly. “What are you doing here?!”

“I started back up at BU.” The admission feels like a tiny burst of relief… _one down, two to go._

“That’s great.” It might be her imagination, light-headedness from the nerves which are beating her senseless, but those eyes appear to be following the length of her body, drinking her in. “Wow, it’s just so good to see you. You look amazing, Korra!” 

Then she is hammered by the realization that Asami has yet to see her walking, feels like an absolute moron for thinking it could be anything more. Staring down at the floor, she pushes the agitation she feels aside, lifting her head just enough to meet the other woman’s gaze which is soft and all too easy to lose herself in.

“Being upright makes a big difference.” She jokes, the delivery strained.

Asami reacts like the jest is a shove, startled and forehead cinched, starting to say something but stopping herself. Korra doesn’t know what it means. The woman throws an arm across her own torso, hand nearly vanished in a maroon sleeve, and clutching at her elbow. The other arm reaches across the divide between them and the taller girl runs a thumb over the back of Korra’s hand before squeezing it. The gesture confuses because it feels reassuring, but what that reassurance is in relation to, she can’t say. Nonetheless, the friendly touch is not unwelcome. 

“Can I buy you a coffee? If you’re not busy? I’d love to catch up for a bit. My treat!”

She’s nodding before she has time to process the invitation, laughs anxiously at nothing. “Um sure, yeah.”

Asami smiles and tilts her head toward her belongings. “Wanna hold my table? I’ll be right back.”

“Ok.” And she sits, residual adrenaline making her feel like her veins are filled with electricity. Her mouth is dry, her head clouded…and a clamminess, it slicks her palms. She can’t remember when she last felt this restless and she closes her eyes…breathes and counts, breathes and counts…

“I’m assuming you still take it the same way?” Asami says curiously, the sound making her jump and popping her eyes back open. A wooden stirrer is held in a delicate grip, freshly added cream swirling hypnotically into dark liquid. As the color evens, she does too, and the woman pushes the cup in her direction.

“You’re so sweet, thanks.” Her response is low and more emotional than she would’ve liked, but her friend remembering how she takes her coffee…it’s inexplicably touching. Maybe it is the nervousness augmenting her response. Korra knows it means too much to her, but she didn’t imagine kindness and calmness.

“When did you get back?” Asami asks, taking a seat again, removing her glasses and neatly stowing her tablet in a leather messenger bag slung on the back of her chair.

It takes a moment to marshal her courage. “With everyone else in the Fall.” 

“That’s…” It all too obvious Asami is hurt by the admission, though she attempts to disguise it and the guilt swarms. “That’s good.” Korra has been here for a month and told no one. Only Tenzin knows she returned and that was not even her doing.

“I was actually just talking to my mom on the way over here. My parents keep asking how you are.” Korra volunteers to soften the blow, unsure if it is the right move. 

The response is a full smile, happy and appreciative. Her parents like the other woman, liked Asami since the very first time they met her on a visit. “Tell them I say hello the next time, okay?”

“I will.” Korra agrees. “My mom’s been bugging me to meet up with you, so I could get your address.” The look on Asami’s face is indecipherable, with averted eyes and straight lips. Korra finds herself swallowing and chugging along clumsily. “I guess she’s already getting headcounts. She wants to send you a tin of her Christmas cookies.”

An eyebrow raises and that definitely captured Asami’s attention. Senna’s cookies are legend, at least to hear Bolin tell the tale. She frowns as she thinks of him. “Like the toffee ones with the chocolate on top? And the sprinkles?”

“Yeah, those and five other kinds she makes.” She comments with a shrug and a nod.

The chocolate-covered toffee bars are a hit with everyone and Korra is used to regretfully watching her supply dwindle each time she politely offers the tin to anyone. Even their family Christmases, she vividly recalls fretfully watching her relatives who packed into their small home gobble up all the best varieties. She could protest it as a child when her precociousness was cute, but once she hit a certain age she had to silently watch. They would move onto the hazelnut shortbreads, the lime spritzers, the gingerbread snowmen, devouring without remorse. She’d pace around the dessert table with her heart breaking. Only the anise-flavored ones would be left for her on Christmas Day. She’d learned by ten, to put a few toffee bars aside secretly, squirreling them away in the kitchen somewhere to have under the cover of night. 

When she leaves the memory, Asami’s expression is entirely fondness, gaze sparkling. “Your mom’s the best. How’s Naga?”

How much she misses her dog is near sickness. The worst moments are those where she forgets and opens the door, expecting to be pounced on and the only weight which greets is the cavernous silence of her dorm room. “She’s probably having the time of her life without me. My dad spoils her rotten.” 

The other woman smirks, before taking a sip of her tea. “I can’t believe how long it’s been,” Asami says again after, gaze hanging on her face as if looking for something.

It had been a long time and everyone else is cruising along in their life she’s sure. Their accomplishments and benchmarks are piling up, while she’s barely begun. Conversely, starting again after such a long absence feels a step backward for reasons she doesn’t fully comprehend. Korra rubs hands over her face as if it could brush her apprehensions away. “I am so behind.”

Asami frowns and then offers a sympathetic smile. “You’re really not. I’m sure you’ll still graduate before I finish.”

Unable to contain it, Korra scoffs. “Finish, what? Your Ph.D.?”

The taller woman eyes her cautiously. “School is school.”

“Maybe for you genius engineer girl.” She murmurs with the gentleness she feels over it. Whatever reservations she has about herself and her path, she is proud to bursting of Asami.

There is nothing remotely the same about the two of them scholastically. Korra never had much of a plan, was an exceptional collegiate level hockey player, who was still figuring herself out before her entire life imploded, everything ripped away in an instant. Her friend, on the other hand, is gifted and designed for success, has a family company she will eventually join, and lots of money. What does Korra have? Scarring, impressive athleticism turned mediocre, and a whole lot of indecision. She ignores these thoughts, breathes as Tenzin taught her to rid herself of the stubborn self-pity that plagues. Whether she possesses legitimate reasons, that pity is ultimately unhelpful…she knows this now. The decision to come back to Boston, back to school, back to the life she’d begun to build on her own, is a reclamation of her own autonomy. That is in fact an accomplishment, she reminds herself. 

“Keeps my mind busy anyway.” The reply is nonchalant and Korra is thankful the other woman doesn’t ask about hockey, her major, her studies, her choices. She is still finding the answers and maybe Asami realizes this somehow. It would not be the first time the other woman has known what to say and what not to. 

“Not sure you need help with that.” Turning sideways in her chair, she leans her back against the window. Blowing some steam away she takes a mouthful of coffee, which she happily notes is delicious. “Hey, how’s it going with your dad?”

“Oh,” Asami’s face plummets and darkens, fingers curling around the hot cup in her hands. It is painfully apparent she just stepped into a pile of something and deeply. Maybe they were doing worse than before, but she thought their relationship was improving, on the mend even. “…he died, Korra.”

“What?!” She bolts up, straightening and slack-jawed at her accidental insensitivity, almost spilling her drink. _It doesn’t matter if it was not on purpose_ , her mind argues… _if you’d kept in touch more_ it reprimands, and she slams down on her thoughts enough to speak. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

The taller woman doesn’t look her way, keeps her stare to the right but the upset…it curls her back a little, shifts her jaw, wets her eyes. “He had a heart attack about three months ago. It felt strange to say it in a text when we hadn’t spoken in weeks.”

“Asami…” Her hand is across the table instantly, fingers resting on the knit fabric covering a forearm.

“I went to see him a few times back home. We were doing a lot better with each other, so… that’s good at least.” There is a quick glance, and she can tell her friend is trying not to cry. Asami brings her hand to cover Korra’s briefly. “Maybe we could not talk about him?”

“Yeah, sure. Of course.” She fumbles over the concurrence, running at it too quickly, tripping. “So… have you seen Mako or Bolin lately?”

The conversational change is to punish herself for her error. She wants to be uncomfortable, feels as though she deserves it…and at least she sees that’s what she is doing. Her guilt and the ways she’s disappointed herself, she used to think that was who she’d become. Korra, with the help of her fourth therapist who is the first she’s liked, is starting to understand that she turned those things into some mirror-image phantom, let it chase her.

“Both. They’re working as cops in the city.” She knows they were both interested in that career path and feels a little puff of pride for the brothers.

“This city?” She questions, wondering if either has been sitting inside one of the many cop cars that have rolled by her on her walks. That they may have passed within feet of one another with neither aware is a bizarre notion to entertain.

“Well not this city,” Asami corrects informationally. “But Boston.”

The puzzlement and humiliation war with one another as she realizes she doesn’t know what city she’s currently in. Until a second ago she was dead certain they were still in Boston. It was only twenty minutes of walking… “’Cause this isn’t Boston…obviously.”

The taller girl gives her an amused smirk. “No, this would be Cambridge.”

Fixing her face, she grins toothily, projecting deliberately exaggerated confidence. “Which I was totally aware of.”

Asami laughs then and _that sound_ …Korra forgot that she loves it as much as her mother’s. Both warm her up and pull an irrepressible smile. “I’m gonna guess you don’t know MIT is across the street then?” The woman muses, teasingly.

“Definitely didn’t.” Korra shakes her head at herself, rolling her eyes to the back of her head, whites flickering. Somehow, she walked herself right to Asami’s college. _Of course, she did_. “God, that’s embarrassing.”

“You were just wandering?” Her friend surmises.

That’s exactly what she was doing. “Yeah. Pretty much. Looking for coffee.”

“There are closer places to BU.” As it is pointed out to her, it dawns on her that Asami may think she came looking for her. She hopes that isn’t the case…would it be stalkerish?

“I just wanted to stretch my legs.” Feeling unnerved, she is only soothed when she receives a gentle, almost pleased expression in response. 

“That’s a nice coincidence, then. Us running into each accidentally.” The remark is presented with an atypical wavering in tone, as though Asami is not sure it is okay to say at all. “Could be kismet.” She finishes with a quick glance in Korra’s direction.

“Yeah, maybe.” It draws a chuckle because honestly, she wouldn’t be surprised if it was a fate thing. She was never one for coincidence. Bolin and Mako…meeting them at the rink while practicing for the hockey team, Asami being Mako’s girlfriend when she fell for him herself, the messy little triangle they made, the breakups, that they somehow became a little team anyway…so much is improbable. And then of course what happened and didn’t happen between her and Asami right before her accident, has pride of place in the things she tries not to consider. Now here they are together and talking as if years haven’t passed. It definitively has some flavor of outside intervention.

With her brow worried, the taller girl shifts her jaw and blinks before posing a question. “So…how are your legs?”

She opts for something light. “Usable.”

The tentative curl of Asami’s lips makes her smile as supportively as she can muster. If they start to see one another regularly again, she doesn’t want it to be a taboo subject. Taboo subjects require a lot more effort to avoid. “Usable’s good.” Korra would agree. “Are you hungry?”

Her friend should really know better than to ask that, though the abrupt change in subject surprises. “Pretty much always.”

“Would you like to share a sticky bun? They make a good one, but I can’t finish it on my own.”

“I’m in.” And her friend is up not a second later, headed back to the line at the register and she wonders if talking about her accident, even obliquely, was too much for Asami. It is not long before the woman returns with a glistening swirl of pastry and a plastic knife. She waits patiently for her friend to sit before she reaches for a piece.

“Korra?”

“Mmphyeah?” It’s not intentional, her speaking around a mouthful of sticky bun, but the concern infusing her name begs a reaction. “Sorry. This is amazing.” She justifies, wiping at her lips quickly.

As Asami looks at her, really looks at her, she finds herself questioning why her friend has to be that incredibly beautiful. It makes this all the more nerve-wracking. “I missed you so much…like crazy actually. I know we texted every once in a while, but I thought about you all the time.” The sincerity affects and forces another bout of focused breathing.

“I thought about you too. Sorry I didn’t reach out more.” And she is sorry, less for not reaching out and more for how long it’s been…that chance alone is responsible for them sitting across from one another now.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” It’s too kind, too compassionate and Korra does not agree. Yet she knows she did the best she could, and maybe it is only that she wishes her best were better in this situation. “I can’t get over how good you look,” Asami adds, taking her in again.

“Was I that much of a mess before?” She plays, feeling self-conscious over the appraisal. The physical fragility that cleaved her self-esteem tugs at her mind, annoying her because she’s worked so hard to recondition herself. She knows the frailness is all but banished at this point, but the mental dissolution of those insecurities is still catching up.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Her friend assures and maybe she let a bit too much show through.

“I’m kidding. I know I looked terrible. Not sure which was hotter, the shaved head, or the mangled legs.” Her body after the accident…it’s not worth remembering, but maybe humor is the only weapon left to deal with it.

“Korra,” Talking about the accident definitely bothers Asami, she can see it now clear as day. She doesn’t quite know why…if it is awkwardness or the memories.

“It’s fine. I can joke about it.” She offers as a comfort, but it has the opposite effect, and that tiny sheen of wetness returns to the taller girl’s eyes. “Hey, I wasn’t trying to make you uncomfortable. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Hastily wiping at her lower lids, the other woman clears her throat quietly. “Wanna take a walk? Get out of here?”

She understands the underlying message, that Asami needs some air. “Sure, lemme grab my bag and we’ll walk.” Collecting their belongings in silence, they head out of the bakery, Korra following her friend’s lead. She doesn’t want to break whatever cord is allowing them to reconnect, is hyperconscious of potential fragility. “So…um…tell me where I should go the next time I come around here. I never explored much before.” She says, trying to turn the mood.

“Well, this is Kendall Square we’re in.” The announcement is matter of fact, strict reporting and she gazes around.

“So, where’s Harvard from here?” Korra knows it can’t be too far.

There is another smirk on those red lips. “It’s in Harvard square which is like a fifteen- or twenty-minute walk that way.” Pointing, Asami nabs a bit of the sticky bun with her other hand, chewing it happily. “Cambridge is fairly small too.” Korra knows she means akin to Boston, which is like a little-big city.

“Is Opal still there?” The girl is a friend of Asami’s and a love interest for one of the boys. Korra only met her a few times, but she seemed nice enough.

“Yes. She’s doing well, graduating in the spring if all goes according to plan. Sounds like she and Bolin are getting pretty serious too. We actually met up yesterday at the bar.” 

Her head fills up with nights out, her and her three friends, various pubs and bars around the city…back when they were still cradled in the illusion of inseparability. It’s something she’d like to do again but is not quite comfortable hoping for. It’s contingent upon her not having entirely screwed things up. That’s still such a big ‘if’.

“Around here?” She asks, wondering if her friend now stays on this side of the river.

“On the corner a ways’ down. Miracle of Science.” Asami comments enigmatically, picking off another small piece of pastry.

“Was that an engineering joke or something? I don’t get it.”

There is an easy chuckle and an arched brow. “No. That would be the name of the bar.”

Korra full-on laughs. The mental image of Asami in her new glasses, sipping a pint in the ‘Miracle of Science’ is somehow alarmingly perfect. “Of course, you’d go there. Nerd.” She rags good-naturedly, attempting to bury the subsequent fear that it’s too soon for such things. Unraveling the sticky treat further, she picks at the middle. It is her favorite part.

Asami hip checks her lightly, the nudge abating her apprehensions, and then rolls her eyes at Korra. “You didn’t even know what city you were in, you dork.” _More than fair_ , she acknowledges to herself. “This is Mass Ave by the way. It runs through a couple of the squares. You know I could send a text to everyone and see if they wanna come out. They’d love to see you.”

Her whole being tenses and it would be way too much tonight, maybe soon…but not now. “Uh…if it’s okay...if you’re not busy, can it just be the two of us? We could do anything you want.”

“Really?” Asami is clearly not expecting the invitation and maybe the woman didn’t want their night to continue. “Ok. Why don’t we hop on the T and go into the city for a bit?” Or maybe she did.

A night with her friend, who by some marvel of undeserved good fortune, does not in fact resent her powerfully…who is she to argue with it? “Let’s do it.”

They navigate the red line, through the chaos of Park Street to emerge in a place they often talked about going but never made it to as a group. They walk down the paths that traverse Boston Common, ambulating past a gazebo on a mound. Korra pointedly ignores the ice-skating area near the structure, the wails of falling children, and the people gliding smoothly. Asami’s height thankfully calls her attention away as they walk beside each other shoulder-to-slightly lower shoulder. When she glances over as they leave the rink behind, she forgets to lift her head, and her eyes land directly on red lips. She looks away impulsively, eyes fixed on the dirt and mind clamping down. Korra is diligent in extending her neck thereafter and quickens her pace to stay in step with the woman’s lengthier gait, trying to get out of her own head. There is something lovely and familiar in this and she focuses on that instead, soaks in it. As the distance from the skaters grows, the two of them start to chat with welcome facility in the fresh Fall air. They talk about many things and nothing, silence as companionable as speech. She asks about Asami’s studies, listening carefully to things she half-understands. It is not until they pass two men holding hands, that Korra tumbles into the memories she’s been dodging since the coffee shop, for years now. She shocks herself with the thought of taking her friend’s hand, remembrances running rampant as her mouth operates on autopilot. 

Her mind is preoccupied now with a night that occurred years before, their little foursome stumbling around the North End like tipsy tourists to settle the great cannoli debate as Bolin called it. The debate is one never settled, but much-touted. Mike’s vs. Modern pastry and far too much dessert and all of them laughing like idiots as they rambled down the street, twine-trussed boxes of sweets held like treasures, all the way to that apartment Asami’s dad had rented for her in the South End. She remembers it was months after the Mako mess, after they forgave him, after they became real friends. They’d started to seek one another out separate from the brothers. Asami was apparently shocked beyond by measure that she’d never learned to drive, was secretly teaching her in the underground garage of that apartment complex. Korra recalls the sleek kitchen of the loft, so much steel and black, Asami and her losing it about god knows what. Her friend’s hip had brushed against hers as they leaned against the counter uncapping cold beer bottles. Their fingertips grazed as the taller girl reached down, intertwining their hands as they just stayed there like that, sipping and smiling. Without warning, Asami had pushed off the marble, their hands falling away in a smooth glide.

She remembers her confusion, the other woman stopping at the entryway, palm resting on the frame, to smile at her in a way she never had before, a way that sped her heart and reddened her cheeks. It was the start of a more between them that never quite got off the ground. She remembers standing in that kitchen for a full minute after, staring at Asami over the island, when she plopped herself down next to the boys. The girl had reached down to scoop up and dot powdered sugar on the tip of Mako’s nose. He had frowned and then cracked a smile not a second later. It was nice to watch the two more serious people in their group goof around. Bolin had been watching them too, laughing. No cannoli crown was ever awarded, and the night became a mess of overindulgence. It ended with the foursome succumbing to exhaustion and drink on the plush living room rug. The boys slept like inebriated starfish, spread limbed and mouths agape and snoring. Her head somehow ended up on Asami’s stomach, their bodies perpendicular, as she listened to muffled peristaltic rumbles beneath her ear. She was lulled into dream not by the hushed gurgling, but by long fingers idly turning tiny twists in her hair.

She quite possibly let all of that, those beautiful friendships, fall away in her spiraling. The idea is pure ache in her bones, and she feels the possibility like a surging wave, rushing up on her every time she pictures reconnecting. Yet here she is walking next to Asami Sato, talking with her as if time were a conceptualization, open to interpretation, questionable in its relevance and influence. Even so, Korra doesn’t think it would be welcome now, far too forward, full of assumptions to take that hand again, but her fingers are nearly twitching with the need to do so.

As they cross Charles Street, meandering into the Public Garden, she thinks unbidden of their first kiss. It was after more little things like the handhold had been poured into the space between them. They were again laughing in that same kitchen, always laughing in that apartment and the boys were nearby, sitting on the couch and lamenting a blown call on the Bruins during a break in play. She was about to go and join in, but when the humor subsided it left her and Asami caught in a shared gaze. Her friend moved in what seemed like slow-motion, touched a hand to her neck and leaned in. She sees the image perfectly in her mind, the woman biting her lip and asking with eyes, the little nod she gave before their mouths came together. They kissed with that slim slab of wall barely hiding them. It wasn’t forceful, but it was certainly not timid either. She’d kissed back, scared out of her mind and excited in equal measure by the strength of her internal reactions...that they were to another girl. It wasn’t anything she thought to expect in her life. Her want and feelings for Asami…they felt sudden and so completely out of left field that they were hard to relax into outside of the moment. The experience of kissing her friend was foreign and familiar at once. Korra knew she’d had a sort of girl crush on the other woman, her classiness, her smarts, her general badassery…she was distressed by the sharp realization that there might’ve always been a little more. It snuck up on her. There were two other kisses after, each more intense than the last, each leaving her shaky and flabbergasted and unsure and so thoroughly intrigued. She found herself beginning to think of Asami far too much and in ways she hadn’t before, wanting just to be around her. That third kiss…it was only days before the accident.

“Korra?” The sound of her own name jars her, and she looks up to see a pond she hadn’t even registered. Its banks are lined with various trees she thinks can only be weeping willows, with their gracefully swaying and drooping branches. The leaves which remain, strands of pale yellow, nearly caress the water’s surface. 

“Wow. This is gorgeous.” She’s pleased with the distraction, but it doesn’t last. Gazing at her friend, she turns over a question in her mind, if the other woman ever thinks about what they almost had. Probably not, she assumes, because she can’t imagine that others have not attempted to take her place. _Her place_ …she feels ashamed and embarrassed for the phrasing even if it never emerged from her lips. 

“I love it. I come here on my own sometimes. It’s so peaceful.” Asami adjusts the strap of her messenger bag so it slips beneath the wide collar of her leather jacket, eyes scanning across the scene in front of them. “Are you okay? You seem distracted.”

She closes her eyes to prevent them from saying too much. “Just thinking about some stuff, sorry.” Straightening herself, she reopens them to take in the natural beauty that abounds. “We always used to say we’d go here as a group. We never made it, did we?” A small smirk is given to lighten a comment which hurt her a little to say.

“Well, we’re here now.” Asami tucks some hair behind her own ear, rubbing her lips together. “I know it’s just us, but…”

She interrupts before such a thought can go any further. “Thank you for taking me. I’m glad I'm getting to see it. What do you do when you come here?”

“Mmm.” Tilting her head, Asami seems to consider her answer carefully. “I read or sketch, usually. Under that tree over there, that’s my spot.”

And then they are there, seated beside one another through mutually unspoken agreement on a carpet of orange and yellow and red. It feels meant to be. Korra stretches her legs in front of her, while Asami has her knees bent, arms resting as a second layer, chin balanced on top. They say little for ten minutes or so as they watch the light wind blow leaves into the pond and the sun dies, half-hidden by clouds. The water looks black for a moment, but then catches pinks and purples from above, only the waves in miniature breaking up what would be a perfect mirror. It’s a picturesque evening and the weather is mild, doesn’t cut into them. It is then, when the light in the sky vanishes, that her friend asks about the accident for the first time. Darkness falls over them and the mostly abandoned garden while they discuss the things she’s loathed to. There is talk of her recovery, the strictly physical aspects of it, how long it took her to walk, her pain levels, what persists. There is also talk of how she feels, her mental recovery, her anxiety, her nightmares, and finding a degree of control through meditation with Tenzin. She tells Asami what frightens her for the future, of her worries over school, and possible stagnation and the life she needs to find. The guilt is heavy in her heart and mind…her phantom skulking about just out of sight, but still, she talks as if it is a necessity she’s been neglecting…as though these things are a poison waiting to be siphoned from her skin. An hour and a half pass unchecked as she tells Asami more than she has ever told anyone about the ordeal, gripping nervously at the sleeves of her jacket when the emotions crest. She tells Asami the hard things, the sad things, the things she’s sure will smash whatever is left between them. The taller woman listens patiently, asks questions when she has them and ends up releasing the tears withheld at the bakery as they sit together in the aftermath of her reveal. A stoic crier, Asami does not weep or sob; just quietly lets the drops trail down her cheeks. Those tears she says when she is able, are for how close Korra came to death, for the sight of her in such a condition, for the helplessness she felt, for the loss of a last living parent. She doesn’t cry with the woman, she’s cried out, but she does embrace Asami…empathy bright in her eyes. 

A non-sequitur is needed after all that, and she rubs at the other woman’s back, while she inquires casually after dinner options, the sticky bun long since used up by her robust metabolism. Asami laughs, one last hiccup of sadness while buried in Korra's shoulder and wipes at her eyes, glancing distastefully down at the black marks across her thumbs. Eye makeup is smeared hopelessly, and they spend the next few minutes with Korra pointing her cell phone flashlight at the other woman’s face, while a compact with a small mirror is put to use. They sit beneath the curving, protective branches of a large elm tree, the two of them alone and likely suspicious with the tiny light shining, while Asami fixes and reapplies and corrects with the small army of products she always carries. Korra adds this memory to her favorites, if only for its absurdity.

Getting food is a thankfully less emotional affair and her friend takes her to a nearby French bistro she knows where they are undoubtedly going to eat food far too expensive. As they near the awning emblazoned with a complementary combination of fonts, Asami specifies that this is a provincial style of French food as if there is a chance in the world the distinction might mean something to Korra. It is something she loves about the other woman, how many things she knows, like casually telling her the Public Garden was the first botanical garden in America. When something is pulled from the inexhaustible fount of knowledge that is Asami's brain, it is never for show, but always resultant of an assumption that others also want to know as much as possible about everything. They’re seated quickly and she tries to drown the feeling of being woefully underdressed in a glass of white wine, while the discussion unexpectedly turns to nostalgic waxing with only a hint of melancholy. They speak then on shared adventures from their past. It’s an activity that feels suddenly less painful after their conversation in the park. For the first time in a long time, she finds herself wanting to see the brothers without the deprecating whispers which usually convince her not to follow through. She spends the dinner smiling till her cheeks hurt and trying to combat her mind’s irritating obsession with the visual lushness of Asami's candlelit face.

The time slips away from them again and neither makes an effort to part from the other. They walk together back to the train hours later, ending up near her college. They stroll past the Marsh Chapel, walking through the adjacent arches and drawn to the reflection of lights on the Charles River. They stand on a ridge of green near one of the art sculptures, secluding themselves, and glance across Storrow Drive where headlights fly by, their eyes coming to rest on the gated river beyond. It is a wide strip of water, periodic bridges stretching over and across to where Asami’s college lies, some ways back from the buildings which line the banks. 

“How are you gonna get home? Wait…where is home?” She questions quietly, unwilling to accept the notion of her friend walking alone in the dark anywhere.

“The same place as before. I take the T in for classes.”

A little thrill hits, that she might get to revisit that apartment where so many of her previous memories lay. “Lemme get you an Uber or something. You’ve been buying me food all day.”

Asami smiles at the ground and nods. She leans unconcernedly on the metal of the sculpture, crossing her arms over her chest, seeming in no particular hurry to leave. The wind plays with tendrils of midnight hair and there is a contentedness hanging about her. The stupidest thought Korra’s ever had leaps out, as she imagines her friend’s loveliness might run on a clock, increasing every hour from jaw-dropping to mind-melting, until it resets itself at midnight and then builds anew. It has to be delirium induced by hours of spiking emotional intensity that causes these musings. But such ridiculousness would at least explain why at half-past ten o’clock, that attractiveness has reached nonsensical levels.

There would be no surviving eleven she’s sure and Korra knows she’s staring but can’t seem to stop. “What’s that look about?”

She startles at the question, feeling caught. “Nothing.”

Skepticism colors pale features in the dim light. “That’s definitely not a nothing look.”

Perhaps it’s the little bit of wine emboldening her, or how much has already happened or that she can’t figure out why her friend who she wants to kiss badly enough that she keeps scraping teeth over her bottom lip, is still with her so many hours later. They’ve spent an inordinate amount of time together after years squandered…she’s not sure what if anything that means.

“You’re just…so pretty. It’s unreal, Asami.” She blurts, only partially repentant after. 

It’s the other woman’s turn to startle, a slight and rare blush making her cheeks gray in the darkness. “What happened with us?” She finally says.

Korra’s heart nearly explodes through her chest at the question and she backpedals, fully repentant now, and not sure why she chose to say something flirtatious when this discussion scares the life out of her. “What do you mean?”

Her friend has no use for it. “You know what I mean.”

“I _don’t_ know.” She insists for no reason she understands.

“We kissed.”

Her breath catches. “Yeah, I know _that.”_

“A couple of times.” The woman amends, a touch of hurt in her eyes.

“…I know that too.” In the admission, her volume drops to approach the inaudible range. It is difficult to pinpoint what she feels, oddly ashamed perhaps? Rueful…a nagging sense of loss, there is a lot there. 

“Then why would you say you don’t know? I understand with the accident and needing to be away…I do, but we’ve never even talked about it.”

She heaves on the inhale, an impressive portion of her agitation expelled on the exhale. “That’s my fault.” A fear spoken aloud, and she anticipates anger and upset.

“It’s not about fault. I didn’t bring it up either,” The response lands outside of expectation. “But I need to know if you regret us kissing. If the not talking about it is on purpose. That’s what I’m worried about.” That statement lands farther away still.

“Not for a second.” _Never._ She wants to insist, wants to kiss the other girl, wants to be braver than she feels right now, needs a drop of the confidence she used to be able to summon at will. “But a lot happened…I didn’t know what to do about it. I wasn’t in a good place.”

She lets her eyes fall to Asami’s elegant hands which are fidgeting with the leather strip hanging from the asymmetric zipper of her jacket. It seems an hour before the woman speaks again, this time with a lilting tease in her voice. “I’m pretty sure near death and paralysis are the most valid reasons a person could have for putting things on hold.”

The phrasing is a shockwave, ripples disrupting whatever course this conversation had previously chartered. “…on hold?”

Stiffening, Asami reacts to a misperceived mistake. “That was probably presumptuous.”

“No, it wasn’t.” It was the exact opposite of presumptuous, striking a vein of truth that leaves Korra suddenly buoyant and beside herself. “Maybe, don’t give a girl hope though.”

“Why not?” She hasn’t the slightest of clues on how to answer that, but the follow-up throws her completely. “I’ve been hoping for years.”

“Asami…” Korra has no other words after. It is frankly unviable in her mind, that literal meaning could possibly be accurate in this case.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were back a month ago?” The query is pleading and they’ve reached another emotional peak, one she’s been anticipating all night…thought against reason, she’d avoided.

“I wasn’t ready yet.” It is the truth, but she’s realizing perhaps her definition of ‘ready’ was the issue. Korra can tell her answer is unsatisfactory…lacking and she tries her best to elaborate, feeling she owes her friend that much. “I guess there are two things. I know it sounds vain, or arrogant or whatever, but I’m still working on getting my body back. I was too skinny, like weak skinny. I’ve never been that in my life. I just, I didn’t want anyone to see me like that. I wanted to look like I did before and I’m starting to get there. I know it makes no sense, but it felt like things had a better chance of getting back to normal if I got back to normal first.”

The expression she receives is unreadable. “I wouldn’t have cared about any of that as long as you were healthy.” 

“I know…but _I_ care.” The other woman closes her eyes and nods, digesting her words. “You saw me right after. That was…a lot for me.” She adds, packing down the images burned in her mind of people’s faces when they first set eyes on her…either in the hospital or in her wheelchair. Korra’s physicality has always been an identifying feature, a readily accessible well of self-assurance. She feels beautiful, strong, secure in that space. Unreasonable or no, it is hard to imagine others seeing things in her that she’s lost the ability to see in herself.

“What was the second reason?” The other woman questions.

“I was…scared, I guess. To see everyone again. I know people were hurt, that I hurt you. I never meant to.” It is something that haunts her, that her pain, her trauma tainted anything for the people around her. To suffer alone, as hard as she tried, always turned out to be unreachable. The guilt and shame still amalgamate and follow her occasionally. There is still some spackled to her insides, even after the work she’s done. 

“You know,” Asami sucks in a breath that shudders, sounding almost overcome. “I tried not to wait for you, but I could never stop thinking about you. I still can’t.” Korra feels her brain break in two at that, synapses firing but never reaching their destination, maybe even compromising the integrity of her jaw movements, because it feels as though her mandible is just hanging there…disconnected and useless and flapping. “This would be the perfect time to let me down easy if that’s what you want.”

“Let you…?!” The halves rejoin with an aggressive slam that requires a moment for rebound and recovery. “No. God, sorry. I can’t even get past the fact you’re gonna forgive me and then you go and blow my mind with the whole implying you might still wanna try more thing.” She’s gesticulating wildly, chasing her buzzing thoughts through the air.

Asami is observing her flying fingers, eyes holding a glint of enjoyment at her spastic movements, but dejection still rims those irises. “There’s nothing to forgive. It doesn’t mean I’m not hurt, but I do understand.” There’s a pause. “I’ve always understood why you left. And about that second part…if I’m not being direct enough, I absolutely still want this.”

“I want it too.” She says swiftly, bewildered, and untethered by what is unfolding after everything that has transpired. “…it’s just this isn’t how I imagined it going when I saw you again.”

The taller girl seems flummoxed. “How did you imagine it?”

“I don’t know.” How did she imagine this? “Yelling? Definitely at least a little of that. Like…worst-case scenario you backhand me or throw a drink in my face. Maybe both.” A small grin is tacked on for good measure, but suddenly her expectations of anger and rejection feel an insult to the woman across from her. 

There is a wry smirk and Asami’s humor is a reprieve, even though it feels just as much about self-protection as opportunity. “I thought you knew me better. If it ever came to that, I’d put you in a joint lock. And I’d never waste a drink that way.”

“Yikes.” She laughs and then sobers. “But seriously, I don’t get how you can just be okay with me.” It’s a loaded statement, layered and she leaves the precise interpretation up to Asami.

“Korra,” Her name is sigh and her friend pulls words from someplace down by her toes. The effort shows. “You’re alive, you’re walking, you’re standing in front of me. And now we’re under the stars and you’re telling me you think I’m ‘so pretty it’s unreal’, telling me you wanna be with me…all of that after a chance reunion and a quick coffee somehow turned into seven hours of me remembering every reason I fell for you in the first place. All I can think about it is what we never got to be, what I still want.” That radiant gaze is meeting hers with an absolute openness that drills straight into her and what is said…it pierces and warms and stuns her. She’s being presented with a confession, that is this evening's denouement...it is wholly confounding in its incredibility. “So yes, I’m okay with you. I’d be okay taking you home with me right now and spending the rest of the night making up for lost time.” Her own eyes widen considerably, and she feels the heat rush over her cheeks and neck and that is not something she expected Asami to finish with. “That’s quite a blush.”

“Well, that was quite a speech.” She murmurs disbelievingly. “God.”

Her exclamation makes the other woman obviously self-conscious, but Asami holds her ground, does not lower her head, speaks carefully. “Too honest?”

“No, it just…” Korra swallows hard and then looks directly at the other woman, knowing her meaning will be reinforced with eye contact. There is an unexpected bit of shyness rising up as she lets herself imagine something she hasn’t in a long time. “Got me thinking.”

A small smile breaks slow and an eyebrow quirks, a flash of optimism. “Good thoughts?”

The breathy laugh which borders on a scoff precedes a single word. “Always,” She says that to preempt misinterpretation and because it is honest. “Asami, you know you’re not the only one who feels like that? I have feelings for you too...have had feelings.”

The other woman is visibly relieved, appears as though some weight has been lifted and Korra feels a fool for not recognizing Asami’s been dangling on a limb, awaiting her response. “Does this still scare you?”

The question unseats her because she was never certain Asami knew that she was afraid before this. That voice doesn’t seem bothered, but green eyes are cautious. It’s something she doesn’t much enjoy seeing. Korra decides she’s been timid enough for a lifetime. She’s not a timid person and this is bordering on cowardly. She walks up to the other woman, steels her resolve, and cups Asami’s cheeks in her hands. Bringing the woman’s head down toward her own, she still has to stand on her toes a little in order to reach. Their lips connect though, and it’s been years since she’s kissed anyone, felt a touch that isn’t familial or platonic. The last time it was these same lips and with the taste of beer and this is different, more emotional. It hits Korra like a bolt, combining with the physical desire igniting parts of her abandoned to dormancy. They stay a hands length away from each other until the taller woman pulls her in, a sounder, firmer press that she sinks into immediately. Asami’s nose is cold against the side of her face, her chest is warm against Korra’s, and her mouth is hot. A powerful compulsion to laugh or cry swells for a quickly forgotten second.

She hasn’t felt so alive, so human, and so unafraid in a long time. She wants to feel this, she wants these emotions cranked up as high as they’ll go, she wants their connection drawn out and dived into. She’s assailed by thoughts long pushed away, thoughts which were only breaching the surface moments before…dreams she’s had that previously left her sweat-slicked and shivering. It is all flashes and visions of things she’s never tasted…Asami spread beneath her, on top of her, around her, and inside her. But resistance rears back up again, blocking her off. Her mind screams like a crazy person about her not having shaved her legs this morning as if it is salient, but she knows it can’t possibly be about just that. It could be mental preparation and making sure that the second time Asami sees her again it still feels like this. Not for her, she’s not worried about her mind changing…but the other woman’s, there’s a lot to process. Perhaps it’s just that she cannot yet fully accept things are alright between them, better than alright, that they’ve kissed. This needs time to sit with her and penetrate the self-doubt which still holds sway. It doesn't seem real this could be happening after all the things she told Asami beneath that elm tree. It is not an ending she yet believes in.

“I feel like I should be the voice of reason. Say something like we should take it slow.” She jokes, discomforted, and self-conscious and a little aroused. The arousal…it’s what really unnerves her. Her sexuality, the expression of it…is not something that’s been on her radar since the accident, more pressing issues shoving it aside. 

There is a low hum from her companion, who kisses her again, softer this time. “However far you want this to go. I do want you…but I also want you to be comfortable.”

“Very considerate.” And she means it. “But telling me you want me right now is not helpful for that whole voice of reason deal.” She means that too.

The taller woman laughs, eying her confusedly, then amusedly. “I’m sorry? Were you expecting me to try and talk you out of sleeping with me?”

“Ugh.” Korra groans and feels very much like slapping herself, her neck hot and that fine thread of arousal tightening its stitch in her abdomen. Her skin feels almost liquid, as though it’s moving on its own, lifting into peaks and tingling and very awake. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I wanna wait. I don’t wanna wait, but…” There is no clarification to be had in any of the mixed messages she just spouted. “I think we should…wait, I mean. I haven’t seen anyone since Mako. I haven’t kissed anyone since you. I’m not…”

“Korra,” Asami stops her, all gentle smile and soft eyes. “It’s okay. That’s okay.”

“Maybe after the second date?” She adds, trying to be playful but quite possibly seeming on the edge of a breakdown.

“Was this a date?” The woman asks curiously, the gentle smile becoming fuller, brilliant.

Panic grips her and she’s getting so nervous, so jittery because she might be a complete idiot for not going home with Asami right now, but she…doesn’t feel ready. Why doesn’t she feel ready? She breathes and counts to herself, finding her voice. “I just figured it turned into one since it was so long and we got dinner and we could do a real first date and then we could schedule a second if it goes well, I mean if you want t…”

A hand is on her cheek, thumb rubbing along a ridge of bone. “Saturday, dinner, seven-thirty.” The string of words catches her off guard and her face must say so because more is added. “Our second date.”

“Yeah. Yes.” She agrees, breathless and verbally stumbling toward enthusiastic agreement. “Definitely.”

“Good. I’ll make a reservation somewhere and text you the details.” Another kiss is pressed upon her lips, settling her down. “Then we’ll just see where it goes after. No pressure.”

“Sounds perfect.” She murmurs, wrapping arms around Asami’s neck and kissing back, eyes closed and unable to articulate the indebtedness she rightly or wrongly feels for this, for tonight, for so many other things.

“Korra,” The woman says against her lips, before pulling back. 

Fighting off the haziness those kisses make takes some resolve. “Hmm?”

“Promise me you’ll call or text Mako and Bolin soon. And try not to stress out. They’ll be happy to hear from you.” She understands why the request is made, that Asami doesn’t want to keep her return from the brothers. Neither does she…she does want to see them.

“Ok.” The agreement is quiet and firm.

Another soft kiss, lips brushing hers, more tender than the ones they first shared, and then Asami rests her forehead against Korra’s. “I really don’t want to go, but we should probably call that Uber.” It is nearly a whisper.

It’s too sudden and she resists the parting, as one or the other of them have all evening. “Stay with me for a few more minutes?”

Without a word, arms wrap tighter around her waist and she leans in. Her eyes close and the scent of perfume fills her nose. She wonders how problems that felt so completely devastating this afternoon could be rendered insignificant by nightfall. She questions if maybe she’s done all she can for herself…if what remains is no longer about her accident but her isolation. She needed the separation to heal, to learn to live and think of herself differently, but it might be time to cast it away. Maybe it’s become nothing more than a detrimental vestige. Because right now, this moment, it is the happiest and safest and most unburdened she’s felt in years, and maybe…just maybe. She lets the idea of a maybe crack her open, lets it touch the notion that this happiness is not completely undeserved. She lets it seep in and circle inside her, lets it start to dry the residues of her guilt and clear a place for the other woman. In the comforting blackness of a slow clearing night, while basking in the warmth of a girl she missed like a piece of herself stolen, her mind gives shape to things she’s been hiding from for some time. They are conceptions that for years loomed too large and intimidating for recognition. She silently admits that she will never be quite the same person she was before. She silently admits that she fell in love with Asami Sato some time ago. More importantly, she allows herself this moment to believe that both of those things might be very much okay. 

End.


End file.
